Oh the worries!

I have come to realize that once you have a baby, guilt and worry begins....and I don't know that it ever stops. You think that once they are born, you can relax a little knowing that they are finally here and safe and healthy.....oh no! You just move on to the next set of worries.

There is the guilt and worry that you bring upon yourself, and then there is the guilt and worry that others bring onto you....."are you nursing?" "is he sleeping through the night?" "can he lift his head on his own?" "can he sit up?" "is he crawling?" "does he have teeth yet?" "what percentile is he in for his height and weight?" "does he say any words yet?" "what waiting lists are you on for pre-school?" "do you read to him every night and play classical music for him while he is playing?" "my child does this and that, what does your do?" "you make all your own baby food right?"

..it never ends. Every baby is different and accomplishes milestones at different rates. I have come to realize that you just have to answer all these questions with a big smile and brush it off; because most of the time, your baby is right on track! I could drive myself crazy comparing him all the time!

I was a Sun Harvest with Eli and my mom and a very nice Sun Harvest employee offered Eli a raspberry cookie. While it was a very nice offer, Eli doesn't have any teeth, and his diet consists of pureed food and breast milk. So I smiled and kindly thanked her but let her know that he isn't eating cookies yet and is only on baby food. You would have thought I just told her that I was starving him and depriving him of any nourishment by the way she looked me up and down and gave a sad look to Eli! The kid has no teeth!

Blaine, Eli and I were waking into Maudie's on Friday night for dinner (Eli wasn't actually walking into Maudie's, Blaine was holding him). As we were walking in, there was a couple walking out, about our age, holding a baby girl. The dad looks Blaine right in the eye, gave him a head nod (as to say "hey, I got a question for you"), pointed at Eli and said "How old?" Blaine replied with "seven months, how old is yours?" The guy, no joke, pointed at his daughter, said "eight months" and gave another head nod (as to say "yeah, what do you think about that!"). He was sizing us up! And you get that a lot with a baby!

I can remember clearly having a mini mom meltdown thinking that Eli was behind and that we needed to work with him on things to get him up to speed. Come on, sounds silly doesn't it?! After I was able to take a step back and look at myself and how ridiculous of a mom I was being, I realized the lesson that every parent learns at some point in time. You hear it over and over, but you don't understand the significance of it until you are faced with this very situation. "Every baby is different"!
I keep reminding myself that each day is precious and before I know it Eli will be grown up and I will wish I had the milestones back, and the days of watching him learn how to smile, sit up, make eye contact, figure out how to make cooing noises, learning how to crawl and walk...those will be a thing of the past.
I want the world to slow down a little bit, because already, he is growing up too fast!

He is already hitting on the girls, and thinking he is waaaay too cool! (check out that lip!!!!)

Eli and Sophia

Not to mention, he already has some smooth moves, but a little too forward with the ladies....

Eli and Avery
We finally got to meet Avery!!! The lovebirds really hit it off. We will have to watch and see what happens with these two. I can tell you one thing, when we got home we had a talk about moving too fast with the ladies. I explained to him that you shouldnt go to first base on the first date!